Friday, April 20, 2012

UNSU

UNSU stands for blood – frenzy Grindcore, uncompromising heaviness and energetic stage – presence without brakes. UNSU is French earterror with immense risk of contagion. With a new Ep in the backpack they will tear down all walls. So guys it´s time to take shelter, before your dojo imploded!

The name UNSU relates to some Asian bone – crushing –art, so who is the karate – doctor in the band?

M : Yep, you’re right : Unsu is a karate kata. Manu, one of the guitarists, the one who started the band when he still was in TREPAN’DEAD is an ex-karateka and found the name. Adrien (drums), Gerbe (guitars) and me aren’t into karate, but we thought the name was good, so we kept it.

Grindcore beyond the 3 chords attitude – is this your aspiration?

M : Three chords Grindcore bands are not a problem for me but I must admit I prefer when things are a bit more worked out and more pleasant listening to. As we’re all coming from different yet cousin scenes, like Brutal Death Metal, Grindcore or other styles, each one of us like to add he’s very own touch so our songs are a bit more complex yet enjoyable.

Give me some details about the current ep!

M : « The Filthy » is our debut MCD. The studio stuff on it comes from the very same session than our split 7” EP with ATARA. We wanted to release an other split 7” EP with the remaining tracks but, in the meantime, we signed to KAOTOXIN records in January and Nico offered us to release this session as a MCD with bonus live tracks to celebrate the headlining UK tour they put together for us which we did with MERCILESS PRECISION late February.

Why do you have it blown up with live songs, maybe a more potent split – partner would be more efficient for a handful of great songs ? Or do I have a false approach?

M : Shit, I think I’ve just answered, ah ! But, really, I like the way you see things, but as we had some live stuff and we wanted to add value for money for our fans and, knowing this would be the last stuff we’d release before the debut full-length and are working hard on the writing process now, we wanted to close a chapter, somehow. And, moreover, it should help people that didn’t see us live yet to have some kind of foretaste of the UNSU live, which is where we really belong and feel comfortable.

I mean live stuff is mostly interesting for fans who visited the show, otherwise the interest keep within a limit nowadays I think, or am I wrong?

M : I won’t totally agree on this, even if there’s no « magic formula ». We’re known for being a “live band”, the one you have to see on stage to really discover how brutal, fast, and full of energy UNSU can be. So, even if the sound’s obviously not perfect (that’s bootleg bonus material, after all, uh ?), the listener can have an idea of how intense an UNSU gig can be. Nowadays, everybody can make music with modern technologies, even music they wouldn’t be able to reproduce on stage. I definitely think a gig is the only way to actually show your audience what your band is actually worth of. Thus, adding a, even bootleg sounding, bunch of bonus live tracks is not, in my humble opinion, such a bad idea. But, time will prove me right or wrong...

Chaos and rush appear to be firmly columns of your excellent grinding music. How do you get order in the turmoil?

M : We’re playing together in UNSU since three years now. There has been an evolution in our songwriting and playing since then, obviously. So, it’s all about mastering turmoil and bringing controlled chaos on stage and in the studio, being fast and intense, brutal, but always really tight. For example, we’re working a lot on songwriting, sometimes spending hours on perfecting a single second or note of a song. This is the way we can be both brutal and intense, with mastering chaos. As for rush, well, with rehearsing a lot such as we do, for sure, we’re getting faster and faster. We are also very selective. If we’re not 100% happy with a song or riff or vocal line, we trash it and we write and rehearse until we’re totally satisfied and, then, we rehearse and get tighter, faster, more intense. This is the way we’re seeing chaos and rush.

What is your personal point of view about your ep? Is self-criticism motor or brake actually?

M : The MCD has been released early March. That’s quite fresh, so we didn’t really have the time to have some after thoughts about it. We like it, even if, of course, there are some bits there and there we could have improved but that’s for sure will be done on our debut full-length. We’re never 100% satisfied with our stuff. I mean, of course, when we have a song done, we love it. But, there’s always something we can improve or would like to, in the playing, tightness or whatever, for example. Staying unsatisfied is a great fuel to UNSU’s motor.

What about the cover? Pigs are currently popular obviously. Synonym for anything?

M : Seb of Grafik Roady did it and we’re really happy with it. Killer work, I must say ! There’s no symbolic message or whatever with this artwork. We were working on some design, Seb came with the idea of the pig head which obviously pleased us a lot (mainly Gerbe, which day job is butcher !) but it lacked something. We had some chats and came the idea of having not only a head, but transforming it into some « pig in a smoking ». We really love the whole CD layout’s color scheme too (Seb also did the layout).

Lyrically you don’t take it too serious as lots of other grind bands do. What’s the reason, maybe you have just more humor than others?

M : Well, as being the singer, I’m the one to write the lyrics. We’re not a political band or a band with some sort of message, you know ? All we’re caring about is doing the music we love the best we can. We’re not there to spread our views but you’re totally right, we have a great sense of humor! Ahahahah! Our lyrics usually deal with split personality, which are fitting the music very well, I think, and can be used as a basis for many things, and, also, with private jokes.

Have you needed the NASUM – cover song to show even the last idiot which side one´s bread is buttered?

M : Of course it wasn’t necessary, but we love playing this song and our version is much more faster than the original, this was a challenge to us, when we were kids, you see ? We were like “one day, we’ll play as fast as this or that band”. Among the said bands, there was Nasum, for sure. On « The Filthy », is already way faster than the original, but, now, we play it even faster, live.

M : The deal with Kaotoxin records is planned to be on the long term, yes. We signed with Nico for a three albums deal. We’re gonna record the first one by the end of this year for a tentative release during the first half of 2013 and Nico is helping a lot finding the good partners and good deals (promo, booking, etc.). We will eventually film our debut music video for the MCD title track, “The Filthy”, late June.

Beside all that high speed bashing, how important are grooves actually?

M : Grooves are mandatory ! Whatever the style, the groove is what really makes the difference between two bands, in my humble opinion.

Is you music dirty as your ep – title promises? Or is it just a common adjective that fits to every gind band?

M : « The Filthy » is one of the song on the MCD. We choose it to be the title too because it’s one of which we’re the most proud. It’s groovy, it’s really brutal in the first part. It’s really a good example of an UNSU song. For the real deal about filth, just meet us after a few days of touring without taking a shower and, then, you’ll see we’re as filthy as any other Grindcore band !

Is it a typical grind attitude to release splits and ep´s, and disregard a regular album?

M : You’re absolutely right. Grindcore is an underground genre, so many bands are self-releasing their stuff or are releasing splits. Grindcore is all about not taking yourself too seriously and having fun during gigs. The same goes for us. We started with a demo (“Moral Distortion”, Douchebag records, 2010), then we released a split 7” EP with France’s ATARA (Douchebag records, Rewolucja records, 2011) and then this MCD. We wanted to grow the natural way before releasing the debut full-length, which is planned for 2013. Sure, this is sometimes disregarded, but we want to release full-lengths.

You are influenced from Swedish grind & crust music. Why actually?

M : Simply because that’s our preferred brand of Grindcore. When we’re writing our stuff, we don’t say ourselves “let’s sound like this or that band or song”, what we write is just what’s naturally coming to mind as inspiration.

UNSU is made up of musicians with different experiences. Can you make good use of that fact? Are you a homogenous band of brothers?

M : Yep. Gerbe is also playing the guitar in DARKALL SLAVES (also signed to Kaotoxin records), a Brutal Death Metal band that fucking kills, Manu, at first, was playing in both UNSU and TREPAN’DEAD, a Grindcore band from Northern France, but he’s now only playing in UNSU and both Adrien and me are playing in PURIFY, some kind of very dark Hardcore with which we just recorded the debut full-length. Gerbe, Adrien and me are playing together since more than ten years now and, when we met Manu, it has been very natural between us all since the very beginning. Now, we know each other quite well, a real team, and being from different musical horizons brings a lot to the UNSU sound, I guess, helping having a wider spectrum of playing, inspiration, etc. And, when it comes to touring, we just have to check everyone’s planning, nothing complex. These guys aren’t my friends, you know? They’re just a bunch of retards… No! Just kidding: these guys are, simply put, my very best friends.

What makes brutal music so fascinating for yourself? Is it maybe more than music?

M : I don’t really know what’s happening in the other dudes’ minds, so I’ll answer for myself, but brutal music is, to me, the way to feel and express emotions you can’t find anywhere else in your daily life, like rage, hatred and such. A kind of relaxing therapy made of musical poetry, you see? Fuck, that’s a beautiful sentence, isn’t it? Ahahah! I don’t think we’re that kind of though and full frontal guys in our everyday’s life, you know ? We’re just silly, may be, but we’re not brutes.

What do you think, how intensive you can force the band in future?

M : Right now, we just signed to KAOTOXIN records for three full-lengths. We’re gonna fulfill the deal and then see. But, in the meantime, I think a band needs a constant actuality, so we’re gonna do all we can to bring it to the next level with each step we’re gonna take, like filming that music video, touring over and over and such. But, of course, we’re playing Grindcore, we know we’ll never earn a living out of UNSU, but we’re always do our maximum for the band and I can promise you’ll hear of us quite often.

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